Law professor edits, contributes to essay collection

By Admin

Detroit Legal News

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University of Detroit Mercy School of Law Professor Troy L. Harris has edited and contributed to a collection of essays, "Studies in Canon Law and Common Law in Honor of R.H. Helmholz," published by the University of California-Berkeley's Robbins Collection. Helmholz, the Ruth Wyatt Rosenson Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School, is the leading historian of the canon law in medieval and early modern England. His principal contribution has been to show the relevance of the Roman and canon laws to the development of the common law.

"Studies in Canon Law" demonstrates the range of Helmholz's influence, bringing together a diverse group of scholars: historians of ancient Roman law, historians of the English common law, ecclesiastical historians, and scholars of modern European law. Contributors include Sir John Baker, Q.C. (Cambridge), Paul Brand (Oxford), Charles Donahue (Harvard), David Ibbetson (Cambridge), and Reinhard Zimmermann (Hamburg). In addition to editing the collected essays, Harris contributed a chapter based upon his empirical research into the work of the English ecclesiastical courts between 1725 and 1745, a period that is at the center of a heated debate among historians of English law, politics, and religion.

Harris earned a bachelor's degree in History and a master's degree in Religious Studies from the University of Kansas. He then earned his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School, his Ph.D. in Legal History from the University of Chicago, and a Diploma in International Commercial Arbitration from the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in London.

Harris teaches International Commercial Arbitration, Sales, Contracts, Construction Law, and Alternative Dispute Resolution. He served as Interim Dean of the School during the 2013-2014 academic year. He is also Of Counsel to Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone in its Detroit office. Prior to joining the faculty, Harris practiced international arbitration and construction law with the Atlanta office of King & Spalding for more than ten years. He previously taught at Cornell Law School, Emory Law School, and the College of Management of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Harris is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and serves on the International, Commercial, and Construction Panels of Arbitrators of the American Arbitration Association, on the Approved Faculty List for the Chartered Institute, and on the roster of the United States Department of State's Fulbright Specialist Program in the area of international arbitration.